YouTube has introduced a first-of-its-kind feature in India that allows advertisers to separately target urban and rural audiences, giving brands more precise tools to personalise campaigns ahead of the festive season.
Announcing the feature at YouTube Brandcast India 2025, Shubha Pai, Head of Brand Solutions at Google India, said the update enables advertisers to factor in behaviour, culture, and purchasing power. “Think about the personalisation, the differences in messaging, language-related regional communications. All of that can happen now,” Pai explained.
She added that an FMCG conglomerate piloted the solution to reach rural audiences and saw such strong results that it has now switched to YouTube-led planning in those regions.
New ad formats on connected TV
YouTube also unveiled immersive masthead ads for connected televisions, offering brands the ability to showcase product launches and drive engagement during high-traffic moments. As of April 2025, YouTube reached more than 75 million people aged 18+ on connected TV in India, with over half of watch time spent on videos longer than 21 minutes.
Pai highlighted that connected TV viewership of Shorts has more than doubled in the past year, while YouTube Shorts itself has grown to 650 million monthly logged-in viewers in India
Later this year, Google will also launch a Creator Partnerships Hub in Google Ads, allowing brands to find and collaborate with creators, manage sponsored content, and measure performance more effectively.
AI-powered ad targeting
YouTube is set to roll out Peak Points in India in 2026, an AI tool powered by Gemini that analyses videos to help brands target ads when viewers are most engaged. Gemini is also enabling faster creative production. For example, Swiggy Instamart used Google’s AI video generator Veo 3 for festive campaigns, while another FMCG brand created multilingual video assets in South Indian languages.
Pai noted that the time to create first drafts of ad assets has dropped from weeks to just three to four hours using AI, with campaigns showing a 12–14% higher purchase intent than traditional creatives.
She added, “AI creates a far more level playing field. Earlier, you needed access to a big agency or large budgets. Today, you just need more creativity.”
With India as Google’s largest user market, these innovations mark a major push to grow its AI-driven advertising ecosystem.
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